Inside Washington

Charles Krauthammer on Friday gave a much-needed education to Bloomberg's Margaret Carlson about why the age at which one can receive Social Security benefits must be raised.

His words on PBS's "Inside Washington" also refuted Paul Krugman's foolish claims on this matter published in Friday's New York Times (video follows with transcript and commentary):

PBS's Mark Shields on Friday said Sarah Palin's decision to resign as the governor of Alaska is "like Ted Kennedy's Chappaquiddick."

This astonishingly came moments after he called Nancy Pelosi the most effective House Speaker in his lifetime on the most recent installment of "Inside Washington" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

NPR's Nina Totenberg said Friday that she's very afraid of the upcoming elections.

Newsweek's Evan Thomas, her co-panelist on "Inside Washington," said historians might look upon November 2, 2010 "as kind of a joke...obviously the political system’s a mess" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

This weekend’s Inside Washington put on full display the liberal sensibilities of the Washington press corps as Newsweek veteran Evan Thomas yearned for a win in Colorado for incumbent Democratic Senator Michael Bennet, “a good guy,” wishing “sometimes justice does triumph,” and former Wall Street Journal reporter Jeanne Cummings, now with Politico, was upset Republican Meg Whitman might win the California gubernatorial race: “She’s  built a turn-out operation of her own and it worries me.”

Thomas soon hailed Lincoln Chafee, the ex-Republican who campaigned for Barack Obama in 2008 and is now an independent candidate for Governor in Rhode Island, as “a tiny little ray of hope” since he’s the kind of “liberal Republican” which “did the Republican Party a lot of good.” Despite the fact he abandoned the GOP, Thomas trumpeted him as “a voice for reason in the Republican Party.”

 

“Why is it okay for Nina to express opinions, as she has tartly, sharply, unashamedly and openly” while serving as “an honored correspondent” for NPR, while Juan Williams, “because he expresses his opinions, gets canned from NPR?” So Charles Krauthammer demanded while sitting Friday with Totenberg on the same Inside Washington set. “In fact, the standard ought to be lower in the case of Juan because he’s an analyst, whereas Nina is a correspondent.”

Krauthammer had picked up on NPR CEO Vivian Schiller’s contention that the network had canned Williams because he violated the policy that “news analysts may not take personal public positions on controversial issues; doing so undermines their credibility as analysts, and that's what's happened in this situation.”

An uncomfortable Totenberg asserted “it’s a very, very difficult line to draw. And NPR tries to draw it, in my view, using rules that don’t exist anymore.” To which, Krauthammer wondered: “But what’s the difference between you and Juan expressing opinions? You on this show, and him on Fox?” He condemned NPR: “It’s completely illogical and hypocritical.” (Audio: MP3 clip)

Mark Shields on Friday accused the White House of making up the story about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce funneling foreign money into Republican campaigns.

Appearing on PBS's "Inside Washington," Shields said of the issue the Administration and many of their media minions have been harping on for over a week, "It was absolutely fallacious on their part. And they made it up, the White House did" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

 

Think President Barack Obama has thin skin? How could one not, after the attacks on media personalities like Rush Limbaugh or his on-the-record comments about the liberal blogs and Fox News?

On PBS’s Oct. 2 broadcast of “Inside Washington,” NPR’s Nina Totenberg pointed out the left-wing blogosphere has been critical of Obama, yet she chalked it up as just being “whiny.” “Inside Washington” panelist and Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer responded, and pointed out the president’s “thin skin,” in the wake of his remarks about his cable channel in a recent Rolling Stone interview.

“You would think that the presidency is slightly higher than the left blogosphere, but it is not, and that is what the problems,” Krauthammer said. “The president has an unbelievably thin skin, left or right. His obsession with Fox is a good example of that.”

For the second week in a row Charles Krauthammer has gotten into a heated debate with the Washington Post's Colby King on the PBS program "Inside Washington."

This time it was about the effectiveness of President Obama's stimulus plan. 

"These guys have had a year and a half and people are not happy with the results," said Krauthammer. "$1 trillion of stimulus it disappeared and there is nothing to show."

King responded, "They had 3 million jobs to show for it."

The fun really started after Krauthammer marvelously replied, "Yeah, saved, saved, how do you measure a saved job?" (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

Charles Krauthammer on Friday had a heated debate with the Washington Post's Colby King over what the Tea Party stands for as well as who its leader is.

As the panel on PBS's "Inside Washington" discussed Delaware Republican senatorial nominee Christine O'Donnell's surprising victory Tuesday, the conversation naturally gravitated towards the conservative movement reshaping the face of politics.  

"They [the Tea Party] have a litmus test that goes into being right to life, social conservative issues that they're strong on," said King.

Krauthammer pounced, "Look, I hate to say this, but I think that is completely wrong."

The battle was on (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

Newsweek veteran Evan Thomas, who announced a few weeks ago his intention to leave the financially-failing magazine and teach journalism at Princeton, issued a ringing call – in defense of federal spending – for why he hopes Congress and President Obama cannot agree on extending any of the Bush tax cuts, so income tax rates rise next year:

God knows the federal government desperately needs that revenue, so this is one case where I think gridlock is a good thing.

Not exactly in line with the thinking of Tea Party voters. (Audio: MP3 clip)

On this weekend’s Inside Washington, the magazine’s former Washington bureau chief, Assistant Managing Editor and, most-recently, editor-at-large, encapsulated the political/media class’s priority – keeping government spending safe – as he argued:

Mark Shields on Friday demonstrated just how far a liberal media member is willing to go to support President Obama and the Democrat Party.

Appearing on PBS's "Inside Washington," Shields actually made the case that despite a 9.6 percent unemployment rate, and growing fears of a double dip recession, Americans should be uplifted by the fact that more private sector jobs have been created this year than during the entire Bush administration.

Showing just how adept he is at repeating Democrat talking points, Shields even said this with a straight face (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

It will be “very difficult for Democrats to demonize” George W. Bush “again” during this campaign season, liberal nationally syndicated columnist Mark Shields despaired on Friday’s Inside Washington, because he’s “a circumspect and discreet former President.” Quite unlike, he didn’t say, the often boorish Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

Reacting to Vice President Joe Biden’s indictment of the supposed disastrous results from the Bush administration’s economic policies, Shields fretted:

The problem for the Democrats is this, that the energizer bunny for the 2006, 2008 campaigns has disappeared because of George W. Bush’s being a circumspect and discreet former President it makes it very difficult for Democrats to demonize him again. He’s become a non-person. He shows up at a ball game once in a while, he greets soldiers coming back. He hasn’t said anything controversial and that makes it a tougher fight for Joe Biden to make.

Charles Krauthammer is a regular on the weekly program, so I’ll use that as a hook to highlight his latest column, “The last refuge of a liberal,” which includes this well-framed observation:

Promiscuous charges of bigotry are precisely how our current rulers and their vast media auxiliary react to an obstreperous citizenry that insists on incorrect thinking.

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Friday smacked down PBS's Mark Shields in a discussion about late Rep. Dan Rostenkowski's legacy.

As the conversation on this week's "Inside Washington" turned to the passing of the former powerful Democrat, Shields swooned liked so many of his colleagues: 

Danny Rostenkowski was a throwback...he worked across the aisle. I mean, he was just phenomenal that way. There was no ideology to him. And, you want to know how politics has changed? Danny Rostenkowski used to go back to Chicago by car. You know who rode with him? Bob Michel, the Republican leader rode with him and back, and Henry Hyde, the conservative leader, and they were friends.

With the ball nicely set up on the tee, Krauthammer ripped a monster drive down the middle of the fairway (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Charles Krauthammer on Friday made a truly wonderful observation about how differently the media handle leaks of classified information depending on whether there's a Democrat or a Republican in the White House.

As the discussion on PBS's "Inside Washington" moved to the Wikileaks affair, the Washington Post's Colby King said, "I don't see it as such a difficult issue at all for the Pentagon. It's, you know, it's our material, it's not [Wikileaks']."

This led Krauthammer to ask, "How come in the Bush years and the Nixon years, when you leaked stuff that's our material, classified material, you end up with a Pulitzer Prize, and now if you have a Democratic administration, you end up being condemned from left and right?"

He continued, "I'm not sure I understand" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Charles Krauthammer on Friday scolded Gordon Peterson, the host of PBS's "Inside Washington," for blaming Shirley Sherrod's termination on Fox News.

As he introduced the first topic of the evening, Peterson said, "Which brings me to the story of ousted Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod who was let go on the basis of a single piece of internet video that was edited out of context, posted on a conservative website, picked up on Fox News, and bought lock, stock and barrel by the Obama administration."

When Krauthammer got his turn, he went right after Peterson saying, "Speaking of apologies, perhaps you ought to apologize for saying that Fox News had her on the air before the administration had fired her" (video follows with partial transcript and commentary): 

They say people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. But that saying didn't stop NPR's Nina Totenberg and PBS pundit Mark Shields from making fun of the sex appeal of conservative Rep. Mark Souder of Indiana, who resigned this week after admitting an affair with a female staffer.

On the local PBS talk show Inside Washington, Totenberg mentioned the abstinence video Souder made with his lover, and added "I don't know why anybody would want to not abstain with him."

Shields joined in: "Who was it? Henry Kissinger, who said 'power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.' Mark Souder is the real test of that, because a George Clooney look-alike he is not." As if Mark Shields could compare. Shields is just about to turn 73. Totenberg is 66.

Sarah Palin “doesn't have any substance there behind her” and her remarks at the Tea Party convention were “embarrassing at points” since she delivered “simple, simple thoughts, very simple-mindedly expressed,” Washington Post columnist Colby King charged on Inside Washington.

Jumbling the famous “most of the American people are mediocre. And they have a right to be represented” quote and its source, King, the Post's deputy editorial page editor from 2000 to 2007, applied the “mediocre” label to Palin: “Just as the Supreme Court nominee who was defeated said, you know, ‘everybody needs to have a little mediocre representation and that's what I am.’ That's what she is.”

Over the weekend, Newsweek assistant managing editor Evan Thomas offered an intriguing insight into the MSM’s approach to the liberal health care bill slowly rolling its way through the Democratic-controlled Congress. After conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer accurately pointed out how the Senate bill only pretends to be “deficit-neutral” by front-loading the tax collection process while delaying the payouts, Thomas agreed: “Charles is right. This bill is a fiscal fraud.”

But he quickly added: “I’d still vote for it.” (Video here.)

NPR’s Nina Totenberg attempted to defend the Senate bill as one that “actually tries to do something about costs.” But she, too, was insistent on the need for congressional passage: “I am not saying it’s ideal. But we have to start this.  But if we don't get a health care bill this time, it is probably the last chance.”

Here is the latest episode of NewsBusters’ Notables Quotables show, featuring the liberal media’s most outrageous sound bites.

In this week’s episode we have Chris Matthews wondering what’s wrong with a quick phone call to terrorists, Matt Lauer worried about America getting a big head, and Actor Scott Wolf revealing the inspiration behind his role as a sell-out journalist in a new TV series.

Enjoy the show and to see current and past episodes in a larger format, visit the ‘Notable Quotables Show’ channel on the Media Research Center’s video sharing website, Eyeblast.

 

 

Newsweek's Evan Thomas regretted the Fort Hood mass murderer, Major Nidal Hasan, is a Muslim because of how that reality will be abused by conservatives. On this weekend's Inside Washington, Thomas, now Editor at Large with Newsweek after stints as Assistant Managing Editor and Washington bureau chief, rued:

I cringe that he's a Muslim. I mean, because it inflames all the fears. I think he's probably just a nut case. But with that label attached to him, it will get the right wing going and it just -- I mean these things are tragic, but that makes it much worse.

NPR's Nina Totenberg soon chimed in with agreement: “It really is tragic that he was a Muslim.”

Audio: MP3 clip

Discussing the Obama White House's quest to discredit and banish the Fox News Channel, NPR's Nina Totenberg declared going “on the offensive publicly against Fox was not too bright” and she recalled how, in contrast, the Bush White House “just cut people dead, it froze them out, you know it froze whole institutions out, didn't talk about it.”

Putting it in the most-nefarious light, she charged on the weekly Inside Washington: “It was much more like the Mob.” Seemingly ruing Team Obama's miscue in not matching the Bush method, Totenberg asserted that “when you talk about it, you diminish your influence.”

In full swoon for the late Senator Ted Kennedy, NPR's Nina Totenberg fondly recalled his “greatness” in doing “enormous things” for “millions and millions.” She predicted on the weekly Inside Washington aired Friday night:

I think he'll be remembered as a truly Shakespearean figure: tragic, flawed; who in the end achieved redemption through greatness -- both in his personal life and in his professional life, and did enormous things for millions and millions of people.

(Inside Washington, produced by Washington, DC's ABC affiliate, first airs Friday night on DC's PBS station.)

NPR legal reporter Nina Totenberg criticized conservative opposition to socialized medicine on Friday’s edition of the talk-show Inside Washington, distributed to PBS stations. She suggested that Republican delays are "mischief-making," proclaimed "the misinformation on what’s in the bill is astonishing," and even suggested she was about to use a crude metaphor for the overwhelming power of insurers: "The insurance companies have – unless there’s a very aggressive regulator, they have – I was about to use an expression one shouldn’t use on television."

First, she complained that Republican leaders are obstructing progress on health care:

And the reason that the Gang of Six, so-called, in the Senate Finance Committee didn’t produce something is that the Republican leadership intervened and said ‘Don’t do this. Leave us August to do what we can do.’ You can call it mischief-making, you can call it obstructionism, you can call it constructive criticism, but that’s what happened.

From there, the longtime NPR star went on the attack against the overwhelming power of insurers. I’d guess she was going to say insurers have Americans by the family jewels:

NPR's Nina Totenberg scolded the more adversarial approach some in the White House press corps took to President Obama during Tuesday's press conference, but on Inside Washington this weekend columnist Charles Krauthammer rejected the notion the media's honeymoon is “over,” as he cracked: 

The hot sex is over, they're in the cigarette stage right now. You get a question or two that's slightly obstreperous, but the adulatory coverage is still all wall-to-wall.

That's a comedic improvement over what he offered Tuesday night on FNC when he suggested “it looked as if the stupor that the press has been in for the last six months is lifting slightly,” before he quipped: “I say that as a psychiatrist who has a lot of experience in watching these things.”

Newsweek editor-at-large Evan Thomas appeared on this weekend's edition of Inside Washington and lauded President Obama as a "brave," "great teacher" who "stands above everybody." These comments were only slightly less hyperbolic than a gushing assertion on Friday's Hardball. On that program, the journalist cooed, "I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God."

Moderator Gordon Peterson prompted Thomas to expound on Obama after asking him and other panelists for their critiques of Obama's speech last week in Cairo, Egypt. Thomas extolled, "We're understanding what Obama is. He is the great teacher. He is this guy that stands above everybody." He did allow that "there's some condescension" in this attitude. However, the Newsweek editor continued, "But, he stands above everybody and says, 'Now, listen. You people have to stop blaming each other unreasonably. You have to get along here and I am going to show you the way.'"

The Politico's Jeanne Cummings, a veteran of the Wall Street Journal, fretted on this weekend's Inside Washington that former Vice President Dick Cheney has “changed this debate in a way that has made it much, much harder to close Guantanamo, which the President is already committed to doing.” So he's done an awful thing in daring to oppose something President Obama is “committed to doing.” Dreadful!

In fact, she soon charged that in complicating Obama's intention to close Guantanamo -- which Obama had announced without any plan for where to place the detainees -- “Cheney really did damage to the effort to keep our country secure by turning this into a political issue. We were going to have to deal with this and to make it a political issue is not helpful. It's just not.”

To which a befuddled columnist Charles Krauthammer retorted by pointing out the overwhelming bi-partisan vote to block the closing: “Cheney is the one who turned it into a political issue? I thought it was a 90-6 vote in the Senate. Just about every Democrat in the Senate-” Cummings jumped in to blame Cheney for turning virtually every Senate Democrat against Obama: “No, Cheney started making political arguments a week ago. That is when you did start to see the tide turn up on Capitol Hill. It was after Cheney started to talk about 'I don't want to be the Member who says I brought a terrorist to a jail in my district.'”

Asked “why does it matter” what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “knew or did not know” about the “enhanced interrogation” of terror suspects, Newsweek's Evan Thomas and NPR's Nina Totenberg failed to address Pelosi's hypocrisy in now condemning others for what she knew about years go, as both dismissed the relevance of her evolving memory.

On Friday's Inside Washington, Thomas insisted “it doesn't” matter, maintaining “this is all noise, this is all noise.” Totenberg declared “I don't think it matters, except that it is a diversion that is encouraged by former Bush people who don't want to have this conversation.” On the facts, Totenberg came down on Pelosi's side as she charged the CIA “did mislead” the Speaker: “I think it's entirely plausible -- and maybe even probable -- that the CIA told the technical truth in a way that did mislead Nancy Pelosi.”

Thomas, Editor at Large with Newsweek after stints as Assistant Managing Editor and Washington bureau chief, contended “Rush Limbaugh is good” for the Republican Party since he'll “take it down as low as it can go” so Republicans “make complete fools of themselves” and “then maybe,” Thomas yearned, “a moderate can come in and rescue them.”

Commenting on Senator Arlen Specter's switch from the Republican to Democratic Party, Newsweek's Evan Thomas declared Republicans are now “exactly like the Labor Party in England in the 1970s. They're letting their extremists take them straight down.” As if that would upset Thomas and the Washington press corps -- whose very characterization of conservatives as “extremists” is only helping uninformed Americans to see Republicans and conservatives as outside the mainstream.

The assessment from Thomas about how conservatives are “extremists” came on Inside Washington, a weekly show produced and aired over the weekend by Washington, DC's ABC affiliate, but first broadcast Friday night on the local PBS station, Thomas, Editor at Large with Newsweek after stints as Assistant Managing Editor and Washington bureau chief, proposed:

I don't think the Republicans would appreciate the comparison, but they're exactly like the Labor Party in England in the 1970s. They're letting their extremists take them straight down. The same thing as going to happen -- they had to disappear for a while and when they reinvented themselves they did it with moderates, they did it with  Tony Blair.

NPR's Nina Totenberg on Friday night was unsure as to whether the tea parties have “any legs are not” since “at almost any given time any cockamamie proposition in America will have at least 25 percent of those polled supporting it.” On Inside Washington she called the anti-tax and anti-spending rallies “a good stunt,” before declaring Americans “pay relatively small taxes” and then lecturing those unappreciative protesters about how taxes provide, as if they want taxes totally eliminated, “a civilized kind of social compact where you don't have massive civil eruptions. That is what taxes are for.”

To which, Newsweek's Evan Thomas chimed in: “I'm all for paying more taxes.”

NPR's Nina Totenberg must live in a world of Obama fanatics. But she works for NPR, so that's tautological. Weeks after she relayed how “a friend of mine said, 'oh my God, we have a President again!,'” this weekend she excitedly recounted how, following President Barack Obama's trip to Europe, she “heard...all over Washington” people saying “'I'm going to go on YouTube and watch the President's speech because I heard it was so good.'” She hailed that as “just an amazing thing.”

On Inside Washington, a weekly show produced at DC's ABC affiliate and aired on it and its local all-news cable channel, Totenberg rejected the notion Obama's speeches and remarks in any way celebrated America's decline. Without specifying which speech she was talking about, but most likely Obama's address in Prague or before Turkey's parliament, Totenberg asserted:

He spoke of the modern realities and the modern difficulties that we've had in our relations with other countries. How many times have you heard people say “I'm going to go on YouTube and watch the President's speech because I heard it was so good”? And I heard that all over Washington this week. And that is just an amazing thing.